======================================================== | Willy vs. The Vampire Lord | | by Lee Tatlock 2001 | | Special Edition 2006 | ======================================================== 1. Background Information The original edition of Lee Tatlock's great, atmospheric Jet Set Willy game "Willy vs. The Vampire Lord" contained a number of critical bugs which made it impossible to complete. More than four years after the original release, impressed by the quality of the game and wishing that players all over the world could enjoy it to the full extent, I decided to try to prepare a Special Edition of the game. I created it using John Elliott's excellent editor JSWED v. 2.2.9. I submitted a working version of the SE to Lee Tatlock (also known as El Tatus), who told me in an e-mail on 28th March 2006: "As for your idea to update and release my own re-working, I am more than happy for this to happen. Let's face it, the original JSW by crazy old Matt Smith was a work of gaming genius, and the fact that fans still want more adventures from Willy just goes to show how good it actually was. I am one of those people, and obviously you are of like mind - so do as you will to evolve my version into a slicker beast, and be sure to pop all the additional info and your details into the instructions, it sounds like you've worked hard - admittedly it was a bit of a mess. "So, until Matthew Smith decides to do a follow up, the fans, being us and legions more, will continue to play around with his original creations, and with that in mind it seems only natural that my version be modified, fixed and enjoyed in the same way." Encouraged by these words of the author of "Willy vs. The Vampire Lord", I continued the work and introduced some further modifications to the game (mainly redesigning the title screen) until I decided it was ready for release. 2. Changes in relation to the Original Edition The playable part of the game was modified according to the "minimal intervention necessary" rule, i.e. the changes concerned only things which really needed changing, and the interference with the original was kept down to a minimum. The main aim was to make the game completable (bed-completable, according to Dr. Andrew Broad's terminology), and to allow the player to enjoy all of the original rooms. I guarantee that "Willy vs. The Vampire Lord SE" can be completed without losing a single life. Three groups of "functional" changes were introduced: - All the problems which made the game non-item-completable were eliminated. In the original edition it was possible to collect 242 items (out of 256) without using the Writetyper cheat, plus some more using it. However, the room "Aliens Prepare 4 Attack" crashed on entry (due to a guardian set upon some Earth-cells), making the game impossible to complete even using the Writetyper. - The final sequence was modified so that the player can now see all of the original rooms. This was the most serious modification. In the original game, even after eliminating all of the problems to make the game item-completable, if the player had passed the spot where Maria used to be and started the "toilet-run", he/she would have simply got stuck in the hole in "Dank Passage to the End". Since the toilet-run is to the right, the player also wouldn't have seen the imposing Vampire Lord in the next room to the left - to whom the title of the game itself refers - or the following room "Onwards! To Your Next Adventure!". So in the SE the final sequence was fixed so that the player has to pass through both of these rooms, then through a simple additional room created as a linker, and then finally makes the "toilet-run", which ends in a place which seems to be very appropriate for the ending (play and see what it is!). - The game was made more player-friendly by eliminating most of the unfair infinite-death scenarios (IDS), which occurred e.g. when the player simply walked into the next room. The only new quality introduced into the playable part of the SE was teleportation. It was implemented using John Elliott's teleporter extension. It allowed a satisfactory fixing of the final sequence, and also an easy fixing of various IDS without making visible changes to the rooms. Other changes were of aesthetic nature, meant to highlight the fact that the player had a Special Edition on his/her screen: - The title screen was completely redesigned, and it is now probably one of the most-graphically-advanced title screens among all of the released JSW48 games. The memory space between #8841 and #8894, in the original "JSW" occupied by the code which draws the Software Projects logo ("the impossible triangle"), was used for the code which draws the additional graphical elements on the title screen. The rest of this code was placed between #9700 and #97FE, space occupied by unused reset code in the original "JSW". Some other minor changes of similar nature were introduced as well, including Geoff Eddy's method of colouring the "Press ENTER to Start" box. - The spelling of some of the room names was corrected for the sake of elegance and accuracy. - The colours of the "Items collected" and "Time" messages were changed, as well as those of the sprites of the remaining lives. - The Softricks "death" routine that shows the title screen each time you lose a life was eliminated. Instead, the "lose a life" special effect from the 1985 version of "Henry's Hoard" was introduced, by copying the code between #8C1A and #8C30. 3. Final Remarks Please read the text file accompanying the original edition of "Willy vs. The Vampire Lord" for additional information. At the time of release of "Willy vs. The Vampire Lord SE" Lee Tatlock can be reached by e-mail at: el_tatus@hotmail.com , and I can be reached at: jetsetdanny@yahoo.com . I also maintain a JSW website at: http://xa.bi/jsw , kindly hosted by Xabier Vázquez. It is the homepage of several JSW games by various authors, and it will soon host both editions of "Willy vs. The Vampire Lord" as well. Play, enjoy and share, and if you like the game, don't forget to let Lee know that you appreciate the "visual feast" he created. And if you can, drop me a line, too, so that I know that you have had a go at the SE :-) . Daniel Gromann, August 2006